without them we wouldn't be here today having this great celebration and i hope you come back with your dogs, with your families and picnic and enjoy yourself very much so thank you again. [applause] >> thank you monique. thank you for those acknowledgments of the port and staff involved in this project but we want to ask a couple of key partners to speak on these project and their participation and particularly the parks and recreation department, the key partner with the port. as monique mentioned in 2008 they lead a campaign to get $185 million of park bonds, a portion was made available to the port and used for the blue green way projects. that

partnership has lead to ongoing partnerships specifically to the eco center and like the mayor said we are working together in 2012 to get will additional park bonds and with they would like to introduce phil ginsburg director. [applause] >> good morning everybody. so i haven't been able to let it go either. so yesterday our city celebrated a huge victory in the world of sports; right. and today we're celebrating another victory and for the waterfront, for nature and you can feel it. yesterday after the noise and the craziness -- breathe; right. like today -- you can feel it. it's slower. it's calmer and if you look out there you absorb the place, and we are in one of

the most special and beautiful parts of the city and to celebrate an incredible project. san francisco's waterfront is more than just simply the border of our city. in its edge lies san francisco best recognizal opportunities, our most engaging parks and enormous potential to have one of the vibrant waterfronts of the world and in partnership we are doing this along all sides of san francisco for all san franciscos to enjoy. these projects as the mayor and monique said are made possible by the parks bond. four years ago it was approved by 72% of city voters and allowed us to address more than a billion dollars worth of deferred maintenance needs in our parks and to cultivate what once was

an industrial waterfront into something such much more spectacular and if you have been around town you have seen all of the fantastic changes happening to the park and the new recreation center in chinatown, new play grounds and athletic fields and one of the special projects at mission play ground around 24th and valencia. yesterday we had the great pleasure of cutting a ribbon in the richmond. here in district ten there is a park renaissance. we are seeing incredible things happening thanks to the parks bond and we have a new play ground at mclaren park and new restrooms at bay view hill top and mclaren and the improvements here. since 2010 the port has been an incredible partnership

and promoting our youth stewardship program and our program and we have the inaugural class and kids products of this neighborhood and learning environmental education. they are getting paid. it is work and helping to steward the land and learning leadership skills and i want to name a couple of folks from that program. kimberly who runs the vote tear programming and zoey and brenda from green acres. where is brenda? she's not here and carolyn from the port who we have worked incredibly close with. [applause] just to conclude there has been a lot of talk about team lately. chris bochy said it yesterday and the mayor said it yesterday and this morning. this is a team and great things happen when we work together and looking around the room there

are so critical members of the team and putting our parks and rec and open space, the quality of life for san franciscans ahead of self and that includes the port. it includes department of public works. it includes public utilities commission and the local unions and the park alliance and friends at bicycle coalition and the rand off institute and center for environmental yesterday. there are so many incredible partners contributing to making this city better and it's a special day so go team. [applause] >> just wanted to mention a few other partner who is are key to what the port tried to accomplish here along the waterfront, both here in bay view and throughout, so one of those key members is the

coastal conservancy. they contributed $500,000 to the construction of the park back in 1999. in 2010 they contributed another $400,000 toward the construction of the eco center and played a role in the development of the bike way with additional $70,000 so i wanted to introduce amy hudzel from the coastal conservancy to talk a bit about these projects. [applause] >> thank you and thanks for including me and the coastal conservancy in this event. we are honored to play a role in the work going on here at heron's head and i am also

reporting the san francisco bay trail, a close partner of ours. the coastal conservancy -- we are a state agency and our vision is a beautiful and accessible coast line and i think this project really epitomizes what we're trying to achieve in our vision. the passage of park bonds at the state level most recently proposition 84 in 2006 has allowed projects like this to take place around the state, in the city, in the bay area, and along the coast of california, and it allows local organizations and agencies to leverage their local funds, and make those funds go even further through the application of state bond dollars. the conservancy had a great interest for a long time in improving wildlife habitat and public access to the san francisco bay here in

southeast san francisco. we partnered with the bay trail, the port of san francisco, literacy for environmental justice, and many other organizations and agencies to develop the heron's head park, to build the heron's head eco center, and now to plan and construct the bike path and this really grand entrance to heron's head. it's completed a really critical gap in the san francisco bay trail which is a regional trail that circles the entire san francisco bay. it's about 300 miles of it are done of a planned 500-mile loop. for this project really fits perfectly with our vision to improve access to the san francisco bay and to the california coast, to restore

wetland throughout the state and complete the trail in the bay area and i want to thank a few individuals. lara thompson and maureen gaffny at the san francisco bay trail. [applause] and anne buell at the coastal conservancy and those that work with the port of san francisco. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i mean as we have said there are a number of partners that were necessary to get together to make this happen. the bi-directional bike way as part of the blue green project as we mentioned and it's an important connection from the bay view community to the heron's head park, and to 3rd

street and to the gateway park that we will be building next. hopefully we will start that in about a year or so. a key player in making that by way happen was mta. they were involved in every step of the process from design to funding to construction, and i want to introduce damon curtis a senior manager with mta who is representing them. [applause] >> thank you and good morning. i think i just got a promotion but that's great. on behalf of my colleague at the mta. in particular our director ed risin and those in the street division and my boss on liveable streets and thank you for coming and i appreciate in talking about the importance of the bicycle facility that you see behind

you. before i begin i want to acknowledge the cargo bike way manager who is sitting back there. [applause] so i would like to start and i am proud to start by reiterating the fact this is the first -- san francisco's first physically separated two way bike facility so that is a very big thing. it's something to be proud of and i think it deserves a round of applause. [applause] but in addition to being novel it also includes some innovative design features. we have acwaited bicycle signals along the corridor and guiding cyclists at one of the big intersections down there. so as many people have stated the importance of this project -- it can't be under stated. it closes a gap in the bike

network, provides a connection for the southeastern neighborhoods, the trail here at heron's head park, connects them with the 3rd street corridor and illinois street and it's also a great example, as has been mentioned, of a great partnership between mta and our partners at the port and rec and park and dpw. so i would like to close really by saying really that our experience here locally as well as a lot of research has been done both in the u.s. and throughout the world has shown that building bike facilities like this, ones that are connected and ones that are convenient and for people of all ages and abilities is important

to increase bike mode share and that will help ensure the goal of having 20% trips by bike by the year 2020 so thank you very much. [applause] (train horn). >> the port manages the seven and a half miles of waterfront, and for planning purposes the area is divided into a number of subareas. we are in the southern waterfront sub area and within each subarea we have a number of stakeholders but we always have an advisory committee that we work closely with, so the southern waterfront advisory committee has played a key role in the creation and development of a blue green way project, and has been an active participant in supporter of these two developments, the

expansion of heron's head and the bike way on cargo way and i want to introduce the long time chair of the southern waterfront advisory committee, karen pierce. [applause] >> good morning. today is my day off. i didn't expect to be speaking, and so i came ready to hang out at the park, but i'm telling you that because there's been a theme going here and on my way over to the park i was thinking the same thing about team work and partnership. okay. the piece that hasn't been really emphasized this morning except by the train going back and forth is that this is the part of the park that is a working maritime port and it's important to keep this part of the port that way. so the waterfront committee made up

mostly of residents of bay view hunter's point and the surrounding area and port tenants. they provide blue collar jobs for many people in san francisco. if we don't have this waterfront working as a maritime waterfront we would lose those jobs and we would lose a significant piece of the diversity that we all celebrate so i just wanted to point out to you that i don't know if they made sure that the trains were moving back and forth this morning, but when i saw the train out there, i almost jumped for joy. so my thoughts on the way over here were really about the fact that in 1997 or so if you came out here to this area for community residents this was an eye sore. it was an old dump. for the port it was a

headache and eye sore because it was a dump and literacy for environment brought a group of their students out to check out what was going on at the power plant and those young people came out here and saw a park and a wetlands and they went back and they said "we want to work with the port to clean that up because we want to learn how to build a wetlands" and what you see today is the vision of those young people that was supported by community members, the tenants on the port, the industrial activity on the port, as well as the port, and all of the other city agencies that were required for this happen, so i want us to really celebrate partnership. there are many times when we're at each other's throats. every everybody who is a city employee around here

knows that i am really happy to let lose and complain and criticize. all of that is part of making sure that what we wind up with is the best for the city and this is an example of that. we worked hard. we fought with the bike coalition because we want to make sure whatever bike path went down cargo way, cargo way okay was going to make sure cargo could go down cargo way safely. we worked hard with everybody who wants to come on this port and work here to make sure that they understand they have to be a good neighbor because they are part of this community, and the port is part of this community as far as i know, and i do quite a bit of environmental justice work and work with a lot of organizations around the country that are focused on port activities

because port activities have a huge impact on health whenever -- wherever they r as far as i know this is the only port known as a good neighbor and i want us to celebrate that fact and you can't do that unless you're working together[applause] >> finally we wanted to highlight an example of the variety of activities that happen at the eco center. there is a chip called the alma that was constructed in 1891 and managed by the national park service and recently sailed back to the hunter's point area where it was originally constructed. there is an all day celebration that is happening at the eco

center today to acknowledge that history, and that celebration is being sponsored by a number of entities and i will just mention them. the california historical society and the stanford university and others and i wanted to invite someone up to speak on behalf of stanford university and the celebration of the alma. [applause] >> welcome folks. it gives me great pleasure. i have the honor of serving as the executive director in 2007 and pleaded to introduce you to this area. the alma came by just now and john was going to announce

the project and year of the bay with america's cup as well as the opening of the bay bridge and lots of other interesting things happening. we actually want to have a ferry terminal here in the basin so we can have taxis to outside areas and may our visions come true, and i wanted to share you with as was point out and california historical society and other partners have come together so we have the whole day at the ego center and we welcome you to come check it out. it's a beautiful building and off the grid. we have our own wastewater treatment inside. we will have tours of the boat and in the basin and walk along the trail and get on to the location so with that i thank you and the board is going to go back. we have been trying to get youth on board so if any young people

want to get on the boast . -- boat and you're welcome and it leaves at 4:00 o'clock and congratulations to everyone. thanks. >> thank you. with that we are ending this part of the program but i would like to invite you to join the mayor for the envailing of the sane for this new project. >> on three, two, one -- [applause] >> all right congratulations.